I'll Stay With You
by dietbeverage
Summary: When Alfred moves to a new neighborhood, he meets the boy living in the house across from him. However, he could never expect what an important part of his life he will become as they grow older. (Rated T for future chapters.)
1. Age 6

Age 6

* * *

Alfred stared through the window at this unfamiliar place. The houses all looked huge in comparison to the small apartment he had known before. Each house had a green lawn, with it's own little charms in the yard. Alfred bounced in his seat. His legs ached from being in the same position for three hours, and his eyes were beginning to droop from being awakened so early, but nonetheless, he looked out with wonder at the new neighborhood. Finally, the truck slowed and turned into the driveway of a brown, modest house, not uncommon from the rest.

The moment the ignition was turned off, Alfred jumped out of his seat and climbed out of the moving van and onto the lush, green lawn beside it. He rolled around, laughing. "Mommy! Look," he shouted, seeing his mother open her door, "it's like we have a little park at our house!"

Alfred's mother picked him up and laughed with him. "Yeah, it is a little bit like that, huh?"

"Yeah," he echoed. "It is a little bit like that."

Alfred's mother set him back down. It was mind blowing to him that he lived in a place big enough to have a yard now. A thought occurred to him. Certainly if the yard was this big, the house must be huge! He ran up to his father, who was unlocking the door. He stared up at him.

"Hey, little man," his father said, tousling the boy's golden blond hair. "You ready to take the first step into the new house?"

Alfred beamed. "Yes! Yes, yes yes!"

"Alrighty…"

His father slowly opened the door. Alfred gasped. He took a step inside. Around him was a huge living room, with large windows and a lush carpet. To his left was the kitchen, much bigger than it had been in the old apartment. He took a few more steps inside, and saw the hallway to his right. There were three doors. Alfred walked up to the first one and poked his head inside. It was a room, with walls a sky blue color and a window that looked upon the front yard. Alfred turned back around to see his dad standing behind him.

"Daddy," Alfred said quietly as he looked back out at the living room, "I don't get it. Where's all the stuff?"

"What stuff?"

"The couch and the table and the TV and stuff."

His father laughed. "It's in the moving van, silly. We still need to bring it in."

Alfred was still puzzled. Why would the stuff be in the moving van?

"Look," his dad said, leading him back outside, "Why don't you wait out here on the lawn until me and Mommy bring all the furniture inside. That way you won't get in the way."

Alfred nodded and sat down on the grass, not knowing what to do. He did a few somersaults. He attempted to climb the tree (but in vain). He dug up some dirt and found a roly-poly. Alfred groaned and flopped onto his back. The novelty of the yard had already worn off, and he still didn't know what to do. He sat back up and started pulling grass out of the ground.

"Psst," he heard above him.

He looked up. It was his mother. "Look over there."

Alfred followed her pointing finger across the street. He scrunched his eyebrows, trying to find what she was showing him. Then he saw him.

Sitting quietly on the porch of the house opposite theirs was a young boy, reading a book. His eyes shifted above the rim for just a moment, but the boy instantly buried his face back into the book when he realised that Alfred and his mother were looking at him.

"If you're bored, why don't you go talk to that boy over there? He's been watching you for a while now," his mother whispered, and winked at him.

Alfred got up and brushed the grass off his pants. Tentatively, he crossed the street and made his way up to the other boy, who was still nose deep in his book.

Up close, he could see that the boy had sandy blond hair, and a few freckles dotted his hands and forehead. The cover of the book showed a girl surrounded by books of different colors.

"May-tid-la," Alfred sounded out to the best of his ability.

The boy shifted and slowly looked up from his book. His eyebrows were surprisingly big, and his eyes were a light green.

"It's Ma-_til-_da," he corrected.

"Oh," Alfred said.

There was a small moment of silence, before Alfred spoke again.

"So what's your name?"

The boy put his book down. "Arthur," he replied.

"Cool. My name's Alfred. How old are you?"

"Eight."

"Wow, I'm six. You're really old."

"Not really."

"Yeah-huh. You're pretty much a big kid."

"I guess so."

"How come you were looking at me?"

Arthur's cheeks flushed red and he looked at the ground. "I wasn't."

"Then how come my mom said so?"

"I don't know."

Alfred put his hands in his pockets. "Okay," he said. "So why are you reading a book?"

Arthur shrugged. "I just like reading."

"Oh, that's weird. Reading is really hard."

"Not for me."

There was yet another moment of silence. Alfred looked back to his house while Arthur became very interested in the bush beside him. Then he spoke up.

"I already read this book a lot of times, so do you want to watch the movie with me?"

Alfred looked back at the boy. His expression was flat, but his eyes were bright and yearning. He grinned.

"Yeah, that sounds good!"


	2. Age 8

Age 8

* * *

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the first ever Arthur Kirkland magic show! Prepare to be amazed as I blow your mind, defy the laws of reality, and make you question everything you have ever known!"

Alfred clapped loudly, laughing. "Arthur, there's no ladies here. Just me!"

Arthur scrunched up his nose, his little quirk when he was annoyed. "I know that, duh. It's to be dramatic."

"Okay, okay. Do the show!" Alfred smiled.

A smile spread over Arthur's face, but it was quickly replaced by a mischievous, shifty look. He pulled the cheap purple cape over his face and took a few steps back. "Now," he said in a low tone, "for my first trick, I will take this-" he let go of the cape and in his hand was a small pebble, "-rock, and place it here, on the table."

He set the stone down in the middle of the plastic folding table, with a bedsheet draped over as a makeshift tablecloth. "Then, I will take these three cups, and put them each on the table, with only one covering the rock."

Arthur pulled three small cups from a box and put them all on the table, covering the rock as he had said he would. Then, he quickly began shuffling the cups, changing their positions as quickly as he could. Alfred watched with wide eyes. He kept his eye on the cup which held the rock inside. His eyes darted to and fro with the cup's position, and finally, Arthur stopped mixing them around.

"Now, you there in the audience," Arthur pointed at Alfred, "which cup has the rock inside it?"

Alfred jumped up and pointed to the cup on his left. "That one!" he exclaimed, confident as ever.

Arthur grinned and lifted the cup, but to Alfred's surprise, there was no rock underneath.

"What..? But I followed it exactly!"

"Why don't you check under the other ones?"

Alfred lifted the other two cups, but they also were empty.

"Hahahahaha! I, Arthur Kirkland the magnificent, have made the rock disappear!"

He took an extravagant bow and and Alfred clapped, awed by the boy's performance.

"That was awesome!" he said, sitting back down, "But… where is it?"

Arthur laughed. "A magician never reveals his secrets."

Alfred pulled a sour face, but quickly got over his trouble. "Okay, so what's next?"

"Well," said Arthur, stroking his chin, " for my next trick… I will need a member of the audience."

Alfred shot his hand into the air. "Arthur! Me, me! I'm the only one here!"

"You, sir, with the glasses! Step right up!"

Alfred excitedly ran up next to his friend. Arthur handed him his wand and he took it with wonder-filled eyes. He held it gently in his hands, afraid that if he handled it in a strange way it would shoot sparks or something.

"What is your name, sir?" Arthur inquired to his subject's confusion.

"You already know my name."

"Just pretend," Arthur whispered.

The younger boy stood tall. "My name is Alfred. F Jones!"

"Alfred, I want you to hold the wand by the end"

He did.

"Now wave it around. See if it does anything."

He waved the wand, holding it as far as possible from his face. When nothing happened, Alfred frowned.

"Nothing's happening…"

With a twinkle in his eye, Arthur snatched up the wand. "That's because you're not a magician! Now, watch this!"

With a flick of the wrist, a bouquet of flowers sprang from the wand. Alfred gasped.

"Wow! How did you do that?" he asked for the second time.

Arthur scrunched up his nose again. "Like I said, a magician never reveals his-"

The front door of Arthur's house was thrown open with a bang, and Arthur jumped. A tall, gaunt woman, whom Alfred knew to be Arthur's mother, trudged over to the two boys. She stood over Arthur and his table.

"What are you doing?" she spat in a Cockney accent.

Arthur nervously yanked off his hat and cape. "Nothing, mum. Just playing with Alfred."

"Did I say you could take all this shit outside?"

Alfred went bug eyed and silent at her words.

"No…"

"Then don't fuckin' bring it outside! Pick up all this rubbish and put it in your room. I'm going to Uncle Davie's house and you better not call me, otherwise you're gonna be in some deep shit, boy."

Arthur's mother climbed into her sedan and slammed the door shut. She pulled out and sped down the street leaving the two boys on their own. Arthur put the wand back in the box and started pulling the bedsheet off of the table.

"Wow," Alfred said, helping him fold the sheet, "Your mom is pretty mean."

The older boy just stared at the ground, expressionless save for the obvious hurt in his eyes. "It's okay. She's always like that."

Alfred shifted uncomfortably. "I didn't know you had an uncle," he remarked.

A sour expression overcame Arthur. "I don't. That's just what she calls her boyfriend, Dave."

"Oh."

The two boys silently put away Arthur's magic kit and the fold away table. Alfred's mind turned the whole while. He wondered if Arthur's mother was just angry, or if she hated him. Either way, he was sure that he would never try and cross her in the future.

When everything was back in its rightful place, the boys flopped onto the couch. Arthur lay on his stomach and Alfred climbed and sat on top of him.

"What do you wanna do now?" Alfred asked, poking Arthur's back.

Arthur sighed. "I don't know. I'm not that excited anymore."

"Yeah."

Arthur got up, Alfred rolling off of him. He looked at his friend, dejected. "You can go home if you want," he said, Alfred frowning at the loss of enchantment in his voice.

"No," he said, and gave Arthur a reassuring hug. "I want to stay here with you."


	3. Age 11

Age 11

* * *

Arthur flopped down onto the fluffy blue bedspread, the box spring mattress creaking from years of wear. Alfred threw his backpack onto the floor before taking a seat next to the older boy, who had taken one of the pillows, angrily shoving his face into it. He let out a long groan.

"What happened to make you so grumpy?" asked Alfred, grabbing the pillow from Arthur and setting it back with the others.

The green eyed boy pulled out his hair. "Francis," he grumbled.

"Isn't that the guy from your school you hate?"

Arthur sighed. "Hate isn't a strong enough word."

He got up from the bed and over to his own backpack, opening it. It revealed a number of neatly organised color coded folders and notebooks. _That's so Arthur, _Alfred thought, grinning. Arthur pulled out a green folder, and from it a paper. He walked back over to Alfred.

"Look at this!" Arthur shouted, shoving the paper into Alfred's face. "Look at what he did this time!"

Alfred looked at the paper. It was a test, and a large one. He flipped it over, and there were more questions on the back, fifty in total. He didn't understand the questions, though. They all referred to some novel that Alfred had never read. He handed the paper back.

"What's wrong with it?"

"Look!"

Arthur jabbed a finger at the top right margin. A big zero had been written on the top. Alfred frowned.

"How is that possible? You're like the smartest person I know," he said, crossing his arms.

Arthur crumpled up the paper, then, as if he had decided it wasn't good enough, he straightened it out again and ripped the thing into shreds.

"Francis cheated off of me! He didn't even try to be secretive about it - all of his answers are exactly the same as mine. And of course, since the school has a '_zero tolerance policy',_" he added in some air quotations, "they failed both of us! I don't even like him, why would I ever let him cheat off me?"

A sullenness crept its way through the room as the two boys stared at the pieces of paper that now littered Alfred's floor. Arthur climbed back onto the bed and buried his face into the comforter. He let out a tiny sob and muttered, "That test was fifty percent of our grade."

Alfred got up and bent down to pick up the trash. As he threw it in the bin, he wondered how he could help make the poor boy feel better. Though he had often seen Arthur upset, he hadn't ever heard him cry before. It was as if someone had opened up a dam of sewage into his swimming hole. It was unpleasant, distressing, and it made him want to punch whoever was responsible for it.

"How about we play a game?" Alfred suggested in an attempt to make his friend feel better.

"Like it would give me my grade back," was his reply.

Alfred sat next to him. "But it might make you less down in the dumps."

Arthur rolled onto his back. His eyes were wet and puffy, but he quickly rubbed the tears away. "Fine," he said half-heartedly.

"Okay, so… I'll ask you a question and you can only answer the truth. Then you ask me a question, and I ask you a question, and then we keep doing that until you feel better."

"This sounds like truth or dare, just without the dare part."

Alfred grinned. "Haha, yeah, I guess so. It'll be fun though!"

The older boy sighed and sat up. "Alright. You go first."

Alfred assumed a very Sherlock-like pose, crossing his legs and entwining his fingers in front of his face. "Okay, Artie," he mused, to Arthur's slight irritation, "My question for you is… what do you want right now?"

"Well for one, I want you not to use that stupid nickname anymore," Arthur said, indignantly.

"Aw, come on! It's not stupid, it's good!"

Arthur rolled his eyes. "Maybe to you, since you're not the one who's being called it."

"Whatever. But give me a different answer, that one was lame."

After a minute or so of considering, Arthur decided, "I want good grades in my classes and…" he hesitated, then, in a mumble: "..._Iwantsomeonetolikemeback._"

A toothy grin took over Alfred's face. "What? You have a _crush_ on someone?"

Arthur's face was quickly overcome by a blush, and he faced away, sputtering. "Ugh, I'm just playing the game!"

Alfred laughed, giving the other a good-natured little push. "Okay, okay. Now you ask me something."

"Fine. It's the same one you asked me."

"Pff, that's just being lazy," the blue eyed boy remarked, but he played the game anyway. "I dunno, I guess I want some McDonald's, but that isn't really important right now, and there's this cool new DS game I really want, but… yeah, that's kind of a dumb answer. So… same answer as you I guess."

Arthur was suddenly overcome by a coughing fit. His face, ears and neck were all a vivid red. When it settled, he quipped, "Who's the one being lazy now?"

"Yeah, you're right," Alfred laughed. "So anyway, it's my turn! Who do you like?"

Arthur's face was brighter than ever. "You can't ask that!"

"Can too. And you have to answer, it's the rules."

Arthur huffed. "Ugh, okay. The person I like… we've known each other for a long time. Sometimes they aren't very smart, but they are really supportive and nice, so it's okay." He paused. "...They always make time for me, even if I'm mad, and I sometimes I feel like they're the only person on the planet who cares about me… even though I know it's not true. I wish they liked me back."

Alfred stood up on the bed, shaking a bit as the mattress shifted. "Ooooh, Artie has a cru-ush!"

"Shut up!" He glared at Alfred. "It's not like it's different for you - you said you liked someone too."

"Yeah, but I'm not lame about it."

"So who do you like?"

Alfred stared off, quizzically. "Well… there's this girl in my class named Hayley, and she's really pretty and smart, too. I think she likes Jordan though, which kinda sucks."

He almost fell as the mattress shifted again. Arthur had gotten off, a sour expression twisting over his features.

"Well, I guess we're in the same boat, because the person I like doesn't like me back either."

Alfred jumped down from the bed. "Aw, man, don't get upset! That's the thing about crushes, they go away eventually! It probably won't even matter in a few months."

Arthur zipped up his backpack, his eyebrows sitting bitterly low and his cheeks flushing red. "Well, maybe that's how it is for you, but not for me. Look, I really don't feel like playing anymore. I'm going home."

The crestfallen boy walked out of the room, quietly closing the door behind him. Alfred watched through his window as he walked across his lawn and onto the street. Upon arriving at his own door, he hesitated. He rubbed his eyes and hit his face a couple of times, then straightened his back and entered, leaving Alfred's sight, whose mind turned from the mess that had just taken place.


	4. Age 14

Age 14

* * *

"Holy shit, Artie, this place is so huge!"

The two boys stood in line, waiting to get their class schedules. Alfred looked all around him, marvelling at the unfamiliar campus and the sheer amount of people in this one place.

"Yeah, well, you'd have known how big it was if you had come to freshman orientation, stupid," teased Arthur, taking a step forward.

Alfred crossed his arms smugly. "Ain't nobody got time for that!" Arthur rolled his eyes.

They stood in line, occasionally shuffling their feet 6 inches closer to the table. Arthur crossed his arms and kept mainly to himself, watching as Alfred excitedly chatted with his old classmates from middle school as they passed by. _Freshmen,_ he scoffed. _Always talking a million miles an hour. _

Finally, after ten minutes of waiting, the two reached the table with cards spread all over. An older student with long, flowing brown hair and a flowery shirt sat in a plastic chair. Her expression made very clear that she would much rather be asleep in her comforting bed than handing out schedules to caffeinated fourteen-year-olds and all the other sweaty adolescents that she disliked at the school. Without looking up from the cards, she went on with her duty.

"Name?"

"You forgot me already, Liz?" Arthur teased, flicking her on the head. "Wake up!"

The girl's demeanor instantly changed. She looked up excitedly at Arthur, laughing.

"Haha, shut up, dumbass!" she said, playfully hitting his shoulder. She stood up and leaned over the table to give him a hug. Arthur laughed.

"Did you mess up your sleeping schedule over the summer? You looked like you pulled an all nighter," said Arthur, pulling away from the hug.

Liz snorted, and went to shuffling through the cards to find Arthur's. "Let's be real, Arthur. It was never really a "schedule" to begin with."

She pulled out a card and handed it to Arthur. He skimmed over it, and groaned. "Hey, do you have Mr. Miller for chemistry?"

"Ugh, yes. Gilbert says his class is so boring, I wish I had gotten Mrs. Lara. At least we can be bored together."

The two laughed together, when Alfred, who had suddenly been the one cast off from the group, interjected.

"Heh, hey Artie, the bell's gonna ring in 5 minutes and I _kinda_ don't know which classes I have," he said, awkwardly coming forward to the table.

Liz slapped her head. "Oh, shit! You distracted me, Arthur! I'm so sorry, what's your name?"

"Oh, this is Alfred Jones," said Arthur, wrapping his arm around the younger, although taller, boy. "I think I mentioned him… a few times," his

voice dropping off abruptly.

"A few times? Hah! More like a million! Alfred this, Alfred that, blah, blah, blah. When _aren't _you talking about him?" She pulled out a card and handed it to Alfred, who was beaming.

"Really?" He said, eyes wide. "I didn't know you liked me _that_ much!"

Arthur stammered as his cheeks grew pink. "I-I don't! I'm constantly complaining about how annoying you are! Elizabeta's lying to make you feel better, since you're a freshman and all."

He threw a stern look at Liz, who gasped as her eyebrows popped up. He gave a tiny shake of his head, darting his eyes subtly at Alfred. She made herself busy with shuffling cards around.

"Well, even so, he does talk about you a lot," she mumbled, looking down at the cards.

Arthur pulled Alfred away with his arm. "Come on, the bells going to ring. I'll point out your classes so at least you'll get a general idea."

He took Alfred's schedule and pointed out every classroom until he reached the last period.

"Room 205, that's right over… hey, wait! You have Mr. Miller? Why are you in chemistry if you're a freshman?"

Alfred shrugged. "I asked. I'm pretty good at science."

Arthur laughed. "Well, you'll be great in chemistry; his class is a breeze!"

The shrill ping of the school bell reverberated through the hallways. There was a large groan from the thirty-some people who were still waiting in line to get their schedules. Arthur slapped Alfred on the back.

"Well, good luck! Don't do anything stupid or make a fool out of yourself. Don't make a name for yourself on the first day. Be respectful to your teachers."

Alfred rolled his eyes. "You sound like my mom."

Arthur shoved him. "Dumbass. I'll see you at lunch."


End file.
